Plague of lead foots riles residents

TRACY - Cars routinely blow past the 25 mph sign on Summer Lane at twice that rate, and someone is going to get killed if nothing is done, several residents say.

Jake Armstrong

TRACY - Cars routinely blow past the 25 mph sign on Summer Lane at twice that rate, and someone is going to get killed if nothing is done, several residents say.

But after repeated pleas to city officials for action to slow speeding traffic, a cry replicated in a number of neighborhoods, Summer Lane residents Shirley Mitchum and Kim Kitt may finally be heard.

The problem, said City Councilman Steve Abercrombie, who lent his ear to the concerns at a community meeting Saturday, is that cars drive too fast in many areas of the city. Given that the culprits range from teenagers in sports cars to moms in minivans, the speeding issue is as widespread as it is difficult to address, Abercrombie said.

"Unfortunately, it occurs all over town," he said.

Abercrombie said the council plans to hear comment from the public, and perhaps a solution from city staff, at its Feb. 19 meeting.

Mitchum, who said she tore the meniscus in her knee two weeks ago fleeing the path of a speeding car, hopes the council listens.

Otherwise, she says, "someone is going to get hit, (and) possibly die because of this."

Kitt said she has tried to get the city to act on the matter for seven years, but cars still speed by.

"It just irks me," Kitt said.

Abercrombie, a retired police officer, said there may be a few ways to slow down cars.

Speed humps are a possibility in some residential neighborhoods, while reconfiguring roads in new subdivisions and focusing police radar enforcement in problem areas also may help, he said.

However, several cities in the state caution that speed humps are an experimental way to slow traffic and can delay emergency responders that have to pass over them. Some traffic engineers also recommend speed humps only as a last resort to other methods.

"We know it is a problem. Now we've got to look for solutions," Abercrombie said.